Badges? We Don't Need No Stinking Badges

Man. Is the NSA some bad dudes or what? It's like the Justice Department rolls up on their crib and gets all, like legal and everything. But the NSA boys, they just chill on the porch and they're all like, Oh Yeah Baby. We got your In Ves Ti Gation right here. Come on and get you some.

The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter. "I mean, we were like, all over there, you know, the whole crew with our black Suburbans and bullet proof vests and everything man," said one Justice Department official who asked not to be identified, "And like, they just locked the doors and stood in the lobby making faces at us. It was humiliating, man."

The inquiry headed by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Representative Maurice Hinchey, (D-Uppity White Guy), on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers’ role in the program. "We said we wanted to investigate them and they said no, so we're out," said a Justice Department lawyer.

Hinchey is one of many House Democrats who have been highly critical of the domestic eavesdropping program first revealed in December. "I guess he like, thinks the law matters over here or something," said an official at the NSA. "Didn't he get the memo from Cheney? What's Hinchey's phone number anyway?"

Bush’s decision to authorize the largest U.S. spy agency to monitor people inside the United States, without warrants, generated a host of questions about the program’s legal justification. "'Legal justification.' That's so Pre 9/11," said the NSA official.